Out of all the current environmental problems such as deforestation, global warming, waste, etc which one is the most serious? Does one of them have a priority over the others, if yes why?

Stats of Viewpoints

Desertification should receive immediate attention

0 agrees

0 disagrees

Deforestation and its effect on fuelling climate change

0 agrees

0 disagrees

Marine pollution should be given priority

1 agrees

0 disagrees

Pollution should be prioritised

1 agrees

0 disagrees

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Desertification should receive immediate attention

Far more of the Earth is covered by semi arid seasonal grasslands than forests, and about two thirds of the worlds grasslands are beginning to show signs of desertification. Saving this land from the total desertification should be the first point of call in tackling climate change. Preserving the fertility of these lands will have an effect to help reverse the greenhouse effect, due to the large scale of additional photosynthesis this change could create, the plants of these regions could affectively pull large amounts of greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. However, it could have many massive social and economic benefits also, protecting agriculture in semi arid regions, a problem causing poverty and sometimes starvation in historically fertile regions.

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Deforestation and its effect on fuelling climate change

Deforestation is by fair the most damaging contribution to climate change, which is arguably the biggest problem facing mankind today. Deforestation is a multi-level problem, not only is this industry burning fossil fuels to cut down forests of different types internationally, but this land is often used for livestock agriculture, which in itself releases even more greenhouses gases mostly in the form of methane. Furthermore, deforestation is the active destruction of one of the main tools in the carbon cycle for pulling carbon out of the Earth’s atmosphere, causing the rate of the greenhouse effect to increase evermore sharply.

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Disagree

Marine pollution should be given priority

The wide scale of marine pollution from nutrient pollutants and plastics in the oceans has too many consequences, from falling marine biodiversity to the impact of pollutants entering the food chain. Currently overfishing, direct discharge of human waste, pollutant land runoff, direct pollution from shipping and mining industries, and millions of tonnes of non-biodegradable human waste are having a massively detrimental effect on marine life around the world. Biodiversity experts have calculated that we are currently loosing 200-2000 species a year, many of these from the world’s oceans. Many land dwelling species and many people rely on fish for survival, not to mention the potential health risk from the rising toxin levels present in both farmed and wild fish. Scientists are theorising many ways to reverse climate change, forests can be replanted, oil spills can be cleaned up, but species cannot be “de-extinct”.

Agree

Disagree

Pollution should be prioritised

Pollution is the biggest issue, because it causes global warming and kills animals.